LARRY NELSON:
I wanted to play baseball when I was growing up and my father wanted me to play baseball. Ever since I was old enough to walk, my father had a baseball in my hand. And when I got to be four or five years old I would play with kids who were six, ten, in there because I was so proficient in baseball. Because that's what my father wanted me to do.

Of course, we did have five guys in our high school that played golf. It was our golf team. Now this is back in the '60s when golfers wore some weird clothes in the '60s. I don't know if they still do that or not, I'm not too familiar with it. But in the '60s, they always wore lime green sweaters and maybe light orange sweaters and maybe some purple sweaters. And we had blue jeans and t-shirts, that's how we went to school. These guys came in a little bit different. And I honestly thought that golf was kind of a sissy sport. I mean you don't get hit, you don't have to hit anything, you don't have to run anywhere, I mean what do you do?

So I never felt golf was anything that I would be interested in until I got drafted in 1966. And I was sent to Vietnam in 1968. While in Vietnam one of my foxhole buddies, bunker buddies, he and I were sitting around talking one day and I asked him, "What did you do at home?" And this is a big burly guy, my kind of guy. He said "I played golf for Miami Dade Junior College." He's there with a loaded M-16 gun so I wasn't about to tell him what I thought about golf, but he talked about it so much and he was so excited about it when he talked about it that I decided when I got home that I would try to play golf. I would go out and see what the big deal was.

So I started playing. I was actually not able to play the game as much as just going out to the driving range. I worked for an Aircraft Corporation and at 7:30 in the morning you entered into a tunnel and you came out that same tunnel that afternoon at 3:30 - never saw the sunlight during that time. I needed something with sunshine so going out and hitting golf balls seemed like a really good way to get that. And I got good really quickly.

I started playing when I was 21 years old. At 23 and a half, or 24 I qualified for the PGA tour. So it took me three and half years from the time I hit balls at the driving range until I actually qualified for the tour in 1973. Now to say that this was a shock to a family is really putting it lightly. My wife's family never played golf: my family never played golf.

I can remember when I first got out. I actually can remember when Gail and I were sitting around talking and saying "Gee, wouldn't it be interesting for us to be playing golf on television?" This is before I actually went down and qualified for the tour. We had no clue. We'd seen Arnold Palmer on T.V., Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, and so forth. And I would watch it, but I wasn't really into it. And all of a sudden, we were part of it. Just went from not knowing much about the game to being paired with Jack Nicklaus.

So about six months later, we got paired together again. We got our tee times the night before and the next morning, Sunday morning, I was talking to Gail and I said "Well, you know, I beat Jack the first time and Jack beat me the second time. Today we really find out who the best player is." I guess she had put up with this enough: she looked at me over her bowl of cereal and she said "Sugar, you think Jack is thinking the same thing this morning?"

I did meet someone on the PGA tour that actually changed my life. And that was the person Jesus Christ. I met him back in 1975. To kind of give you a little background, story of my life, like I said, I was raised playing baseball. I was raised in a very small town. As a matter of fact, my address, up until I left home, was such and such street Acworth (PH) and or Kennesaw (PH). I mean I'd get my mail if it went to Kennesaw or Acworth, either one of the two towns, because we live in the middle. That's how small these towns were. But I went to a church from the time that I was old enough to go to church.

I can remember walking from our house to the church so I was raised in the church, literally raised in church. But apparently, missed a lot of what was said in the church. Or maybe it wasn't told to me exactly about this relationship with Jesus Christ. Not until 1975 did I understand that I even needed a relationship with Jesus Christ. I always thought that just by going to church was good enough. Or just by doing seven out of ten. That's always a passing grade and you always thought that God would kind of grade on a curve. You get seven out of ten right, heck, you're gonna make it. But this guy told me "Going to church doesn't make you Christian any more than standing out in your garage is going to make you a car." Which is true. Going to church in itself will not make you Christian. Being good yourself will not make you a Christian. One day my wife Gail came back from listening to Cindy Massengale speak, her husband Rik Massengale was a member of the tour, played on the regular tour and he plays on the senior tour some now.

And she heard Cindy give her testimony, she prayed to receive Christ. She asked Christ to come into her life - she came back and told me that. Now I've known Gail since she was three years old. There has not ever been a time when I did not know her. She and I went to the same kindergarten class, so I've known her all of her life. And no one was any more perfect than she was. Now this is not an over glamorous thing about my wife being perfect, but I mean, I was a little bit on the bad side. I'd get into trouble, I'd steal watermelons, I'd do different things like that. But she never did anything wrong and I've known her all her life, all of my life. When she came back and told me that she had asked Jesus Christ to come into her life, I asked "Why?" She said "Well, I was a sinner. I needed Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sins." So I got to thinking. I said 'I'll just watch, I'll see. See if it makes any difference.' And sure enough, she became perfect-er (I know that's not a word, but that's the only thing I can use). All of a sudden, she became more interested in what I was doing, more sensitive to what was going on. I could tell that there was a change in her life.

And we had been fortunate, the year before, when we were in Charlotte, to hear Billy Graham speak. He came to speak to a bible study. I did know who Billy Graham was along with Arnold Palmer and a lot of these other people so I wanted to come and hear him speak. He told me that if I had any questions about my relationship with the Lord, to read in John and Romans.

After Gail came back and told me what had happened to her life and after I saw the change in her and after comparing her life with mine, I said 'Well maybe I need to check this out.' So I started reading the Bible and for the first time in my life, I started reading somewhere other than Genesis. I started reading in Romans. Sure enough, in there it says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It kind of scared me because for the first time I realized that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough in God's eyes to spend eternity with him. When he looked at me he saw a sinner.

So I read frantically along and it said that God demonstrated his love unto us, but why were we yet sinners? So Christ died for the sinners, he didn't die for the good people. He died for us that needed salvation and needed to be cleansed of our sins. So in San Diego in 1975 I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life.

I wish I could say that everything has just been rosy. Everything has been great, but that's not the way it is. He doesn't promise you a perfect life: He doesn't promise you an easy life. What He promises you is a peaceful life. I can tell you that He cares about us more than we care about our own children. It was always hard for me to believe until I started putting things together in my life that He's done for me. For instance, just one thing that is so evident, I hadn't played well since I'd won the U.S. Open in 1983 and I was miserable. Miserable. Being that here it was the U.S. Open champion and I hadn't done anything. And this was October of 1984 so I hadn't really played well for a little over a year and three months. I couldn't figure it out.

Finally I went to people who knew the game, and they couldn't figure this out. So I went to the person who knows everything about everything and I said "God listen, I've talked to everybody. I need some help here. You say if I'd like wisdom if I ask you you'd give it to me. Well, I'm asking." I didn't know how he was going to answer me. I didn't know if he was going tp tap me on the shoulder and say, "Hey, you need to turn your left foot out." I didn't know what he was going to say.

Now listen to this: I'm standing at the practice range at Disneyworld, this is October 1984 and I'm hitting the ball this way and I'm hitting the ball that way and I'm just having a miserable time. This guy walks by and he doesn't even stop. He comes by and he says "You need to turn your left elbow out towards the target. You've never hit balls like you're hitting right now. Just turn your left elbow out." I started hitting balls with my left elbow pointed out, made 22 birdies and an eagle that week, set a Disneyworld record, won the tournament.

Now this is the most amazing thing - I mean it was just a direct confirmation and answer from God. God cares for us: God cares for me and God cares for you. And God does not want you to be eternally separated from him. He solved that problem by sending his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. It's up to us just to accept that gift that God gave to us.

But things are not necessarily rosy and a lot of things happen in people's lives. I talked to you about peace and joy that passes understanding. I turned 50 last year. People were saying "Aren't you excited about the Senior Tour and the chance to go out there and have a second life?" Because that's kind of what it is. On my 50th birthday my sister- in- law had a brain aneurysm, on my 50th birthday. This is while I was in Boone Valley where I won this week. They didn't know whether she was going to live or die for five weeks or so. Finally gets out of the hospital and my brother (found out he had terminal cancer in October of last year) ends up dying in February of this year.

Halfway through this year I was getting ready to go out and play in a tournament that I had been looking forward to for four years. That was the U.S. Senior Open out in Riviera. I get out there and I start practicing, and everything feels great. I go to the practice tee on Thursday morning, I don't have any strength in my right arm. No strength in my right arm. I can get the club up to [here], but couldn't get it back down to the ball. I mean just had no strength. What had happened is I had inflammation in the nerve root in my neck. Doctor told me minimum of five or six weeks rest. So I go back home. For someone who has traveled for 25 years, you don't sentence them to six weeks at home. What are you going to do for six weeks at home? But by the end of six weeks, I was happy to be home. I didn't want to come back out. My wife took really good care of me. But we never know what's going to happen. We never have a clue what's going to happen. In the space of a year, almost lost my sister in law, I lost my brother, and I lost my career. I didn't know when this happened to me in California, whether I was ever going to play again. Or at least to the level I wanted to play, which I might as well not even play.

If I couldn't play the way I wanted to, I might as well quit as far as I was concerned. But God was with me the whole way. I never felt like anything was over. I felt like whatever happened at this point, he was in control. I knew that he knew whether I was ever going to play again. He already knew that I was going to win at Boone Valley when I was lying on my back at home not being able to hit a golf ball. He knew what was best for me. And I'm not so sure that right now I'm not playing better than I ever played in my life. My arm's still a little weak at times. After playing five days it was a little weak but I just want you to know that you have the capability.

With all the stuff, all the success (had a lot of success), all the failures (had a lot of failures too), and with all the heartache (and there's nothing to keep you from that), there is the confidence in knowing that God loves you, God cares for you and he loves you so much that he gave his son to die for you so that you can live with him forever.